Northern Exposure

This video shows the movement of energetic aurora over Saturn’s northern hemisphere, taken by the Cassini spacecraft over the course of four days. Saturn’s aurora is caused by the same process as found on Earth but the results are much, much larger…some of the lights seen here stretch nearly 750 miles above the edge of the planet!

This is the first time Saturn’s aurora has been filmed in visible light. The images were originally black-and-white; the orange color was added later by the Cassini imaging team to highlight the aurora better. The actual color of Saturn’s northern lights isn’t yet known.